And another thing

In the last few years, the infrequent things I've posted have mostly been finished things. Or at least I intended to post them. There's been a lot of catch up. While my making of things hasn't waned over the years, my reporting of them has. Which makes me reflect on what my intentions are in this space. I have been quite out of the habit of blogging for quite sometime and yet I can't quite bring myself to call it quits entirely.

Crafty blogs have been quite important to me over the years, which is why I felt the need to start one up in the first place. Even when I haven't been actively participating by sharing my own content, I have endeavoured to keep up with what other crafters have been posting and taking inspiration from that. Mostly, I read blogs though I rarely comment. It's tricky when you follow a bunch of them. And commenting is one of the more frustrating experiences to try and do from a smartphone. I don't intentionally lurk, but effectively I do.

Communities demand a certain amount of participation of their members in order to survive. And as I've become a big time smartphone user in the past few years, I've shifted to using more immediate forms of posting short commentary snippets, Twitter and Instagram mostly. So that's satisfied my need to share things in the short term.

While this sharing is more immediate, impulsive and rewarding (with likes & favourites), it's also less focused or detailed. Twitter & Instagram have been about whatever I'm doing at the moment, and thus not much about crafting. And I find I no longer am keeping track of many details of my projects. I start things to have something to work on. Finish them and use them. I might take pictures & try to remember when I worked on it to put something in Ravelry or on Flickr, eventually. Or often I won't. Which is fine. Life moves on, we all understand.

But I kind of miss it. I miss delving into the detail of my inspiration. I miss sharing my excitement over a newly learned technique. I miss feeling connected to people who are maybe actually interested in hearing my rambling details of what changes I made to a pattern, or understand why handmade quilts make for the best naps. I miss being a contributing member to community that has been important to me.

And there has been no real reason for me to have stopped.

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Now I'll ramble a bit about a sweater I'm currently working on.

Back in May, I finished knitting a shawl (I'll maybe tell you about it sometime). Once the end of the border was grafted to it's beginning, and it took up it's current residency on my coffee table, I begun swatching for Candlewick.

I have had this yarn and patterned picked out for sometime. I probably bought this yarn back in May/June 2012 after finishing the Audrey in Unst I knit using Briggs and Little sport (and never posted about).

This is one of the few times that I think I've purchased yarn with a specific pattern in mind. And I even started swatching right away. I don't recall why this was put aside. I probably just got busy at work and continued with something that was further along and didn't need as much thinking.

Or maybe I was cross stitching? I don't remember.

Fast forward to May. I knit some new swatches, managed to find the right gauge with this yarn (2.75mm needle). Cast on for the back. Made sure to check the measurements in the schematic and compared them to my new favourite cardigan. And just this morning I finished the back and started on the right front.

Can I tell you something? I am in LOVE with this yarn! 40% Merino, 30% Organic Cotton and 30% New Zealand Possum fibre. I was intrigued by the possum and it's just knitting up to make a beautiful fabric. There's a great squishiness to the garter-stitch borders.

It's too early to really tell, but this might just be the hand-knit sweater that I'll finally wear. This could even become a favourite sweater (I hope I didn't jinx anything).

So here's to getting back into the habit of things.